Dudel Christian, Myrskylä Mikko
Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Konrad-Zuse-Str. 1, 18057, Rostock, Germany.
Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK.
Demography. 2017 Dec;54(6):2101-2123. doi: 10.1007/s13524-017-0619-6.
A key concern about population aging is the decline in the size of the economically active population. Working longer is a potential remedy. However, little is known about the length of working life and how it relates to macroeconomic conditions. We use the U.S. Health and Retirement Study for 1992-2011 and multistate life tables to analyze working life expectancy at age 50 and study the impact of the Great Recession in 2007-2009. Despite declines of one to two years following the recession, in 2008-2011, American men aged 50 still spent 13 years, or two-fifths of their remaining life, working; American women of the same age spent 11 years, or one-third of their remaining life, in employment. Although educational differences in working life expectancy have been stable since the mid-1990s, racial differences started changing after the onset of the Great Recession. Our results show that although Americans generally work longer than people in other countries, considerable subpopulation heterogeneity exists. We also find that the time trends are fluctuating, which may prove troublesome as the population ages. Policies targeting the weakest performing groups may be needed to increase the total population trends.
对人口老龄化的一个关键担忧是经济活动人口规模的下降。延长工作时间是一种潜在的解决办法。然而，人们对工作寿命的长度及其与宏观经济状况的关系知之甚少。我们利用1992年至2011年的美国健康与退休研究以及多状态生命表来分析50岁时的工作预期寿命，并研究2007年至2009年大衰退的影响。尽管衰退后工作预期寿命下降了一到两年，但在2008年至2011年，50岁的美国男性仍有13年，即其余生的五分之二时间在工作；同年龄段的美国女性有11年，即其余生的三分之一时间在就业。尽管自20世纪90年代中期以来，工作预期寿命的教育差异一直稳定，但种族差异在大衰退开始后开始发生变化。我们的研究结果表明，尽管美国人通常比其他国家的人工作时间更长，但存在相当大的亚群体异质性。我们还发现时间趋势在波动，随着人口老龄化，这可能会带来麻烦。可能需要针对表现最差群体的政策来提高总体人口趋势。
